Mary Davys is best known for her contribution to the early
development of the novel in English. Her three best works, The
Reform’d Coquet, Familiar Letters Betwixt a Gentleman and
a Lady, and The Accomplish’d Rake, are distinctive
for their adroit formal structure and witty dialogue. She was
conscious of the need for form in fiction, notable in a period when
the novel was often episodic rather than structured. As she
explains in the Preface to her collected works:

I have in every Novel propos’d one entire Scheme or
Plot, and the other Adventures are only incident or collateral to
it; which is the great Rule prescribed by the Criticks, not only in
Tragedy and other Heroick …

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